In moving forward, never forget the past
As OCEA celebrates its 75th anniversary, we should look to the lessons of the past to help us navigate the challenges we face in the future.
We have been incredibly fortunate that OCEA’s past members and boards of directors had the vision and leadership to provide the resources necessary not only to survive, but to meet future challenges with a strong, unified voice.
Because of that leadership, OCEA has the organizational capacity to fight against a national assault on working families in the City of Costa Mesa. Because of that leadership, OCEA has been in a position to collaborate with decision makers from across the political spectrum to solve the great problems of our time, such as creating the optional hybrid retirement benefit, which we achieved through the collective bargaining process.
Yet despite all of those successes and the meaningful work each of you do for the community, you have been vilified by politicians seeking to score political points by dividing working people and pitting them against each other.
Unfortunately, this is an assault that will surely continue throughout 2012.
And yet, all of you have remained unified and unafraid to stand up with one voice against these deceitful attacks. Together, we’ve responded with exacting strength to send a clear message – an attack on one of us is an attack on us all. And we will fight back.
Those traditions run deep in OCEA’s history.
The leaders who paved the way for OCEA’s success planned and worked tirelessly organizing, scrimping and saving to give us everything we have today. They worked out of a trailer, cooked the food for membership meetings, mobilized in the middle of the night when someone threatened our values or our livelihoods.
They evolved to meet the challenges brought forth in every era of Orange County’s history, whether it was fighting to keep jobs after the bankruptcy or improving working conditions for County employees.
As we prepare for the challenges of 2012, we will need to harness that creativity, energy and ability to adapt. This year, our approach may be different than in the past. We will need to remain flexible and be smart about how we proceed through bargaining and one of the most challenging election seasons of our time for public employees.
Rest assured, every step we make will be motivated by our core values of protecting the interest of working families. It’s a huge responsibility that none of us take lightly, a responsibility that we owe not only to every OCEA member, but to every past employee who helped build our organization and every future employee who will have a better life and better working conditions because of our collective efforts.
So let’s get ready for 2012 with a warning to anyone who plans to attack us in the coming year: We’re strong, we’re unified, and we’re ready to fight!
In solidarity,
Nick Berardino
OCEA General Manager
